China Is Destroying Multilateralism; Trump Is Creating a New Order

By Gordon G. Chang:

From its perch on the UN Security Council, Beijing has placed itself in a position to attack freedom and democracy. It was the force behind a just-passed, Russian-sponsored General Assembly resolution to create a new convention that, many fear, will be used to restrict online expression worldwide. Pictured: Zhang Jun, Permanent Representative of China to the UN, speaks during a Security Council meeting on August 20, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)

China, the world’s leading cyberattacker and master intellectual property thief, in November nominated one of its nationals to head the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization. If Wang Binyang is selected in March, she will be able to bend international rules to favor her country’s assault on others’ technology. In any event, her nomination reveals Beijing’s brazen ambition to dominate multilateral institutions.

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“If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it.” —Benjamin Franklin (1789)